Thread by @osbornforne

The American Dream is IMPOSSIBLE without home ownership and home ownership has become impossible for so many Americans.

It wasn't always this way in the USA.

Let's talk about it, and some things we could do to fix it for your kids and mine. 🧵

In November of 2024, the median first-time homebuyer reached an ALL-TIME HIGH age of 38 years old.

For some perspective, in the 1980s, the typical first-time buyer was in their late 20s. 🙃cnbc.com/2024/11/05/the…

In 1965, the median home price was $20,200 (adjusted for inflation, this would be $202,215 today).

In 2024, the median home price was $420,800.

So to be clear, U.S. homebuyers are spending more than DOUBLE to buy a home now than they were in 1965.
cnbc.com/2024/05/13/how…

What changed? One big factor: Wall Street discovered they could make billions by turning homes into commodities.

Since 2008, private equity firms and hedge funds have gobbled up hundreds of thousands of single-family homes—the exact starter homes that young families used to buy.

Because of their financial strength and ability to pay in cash, larger investors can out-compete first-time homebuyers, making it harder for real people without millions to buy homes in neighborhoods where these corporate giants are active.

Here's a local example about one such private equity firm, VineBrook Homes, operating in Nebraska from a few years ago. Credit to local outlet @flatwaterfreep for this great reporting. 👇

Prior to 2019, this private equity firm didn't own any property in Omaha, but in 2019, they went on a buying spree, buying up roughly 250 homes (mostly in North Omaha). They became the 3rd largest single-family property owner in the city.

I don't know about you, but I'd love to avoid this. 👇
ajc.com/news/atlanta-n…

The shift to these corporate landlords almost NEVER brings an improvement in housing conditions or rent prices. New layers of bureaucracy and random new fees always seem to appear.

Here's a snippet from a @nytimes feature "A $60 Billion Housing Grab by Wall Street."

And back in Nebraska, here's what the VineBrook situation was like for the North Omaha residents:

"...tenants complained about unresolved maintenance issues, unfounded evictions, aggressive rent collection tactics and poor customer service."
flatwaterfreepress.org/vinebrook-in-d…

If you are a Nebraska resident, there's even worse news. According to a 2024 study, out of all 50 states, Nebraska was the 9th HIGHEST for risky housing conditions related to the heavy influence of corporate investors.
nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/04/25/stu…

At this point, it should go without saying that these private equity firms prefer turning any property into a RENTAL because rentals = more money.

From that same @NE_Examiner article about Nebraska's risky housing score. 👇

To say it more bluntly, here's a depressing quote from a Morgan Stanley report encouraging institutional investors to snap up distressed single-family homes and turn them into long-term rental units.

“America is moving away from a home ownership society and towards a rentership society,”
dfwreiclub.com/rei-discussion…

And this has downstream effects on society. JD Vance spoke to this well in 2021:

There have been a number of state and federal bills introduced to address this problem. Though I don't support all of these bills outright, I'm open to the following ideas:
-Remove the unfair tax advantages that give private equity an edge over individual homebuyers.
-End taxpayer subsidies for giant corporate mergers that create housing monopolies.
-Stop foreign investors from buying up American neighborhoods.
-Explore reasonable limits on how many homes Wall Street can control in any one community.

This is serious for me. I think about my kids and their future every day. I want them to have the same opportunities I did, but it keeps getting harder. Home ownership can be the first step to a secure retirement and independent wealth. The prospect of not being able to own a home has a corrosive effect on our kids and the rest of us.

Every kid deserves what we had—a real shot at the American Dream. Hard work should lead to home ownership, not permanent rental payments to corporate landlords. Time to fix this rigged system.